Raymond's Ravine

Author

File Description

watchwood

Posted on 02/13/04 @ 12:00 AM

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The Conquerors

Ratmond's Ravine, by me(watchwood), is the tale of the latest and most dificult adventure yet, of a mercenary named Brian. Throughout his life, Brian has worked for a wide variety of people. Merchants, lords, kings, anyone who can fork up the cash to pay his rates. He has very little in the way of a concience, and is willing to do almost anything to complete the mission.

Brian has had some disagreements with his current employer, centering mostly around his being shortchanged for several difficult jobs that he has recently done. This has left him wondering if there might be a way to turn the tables, and get back what is owed to him, in blood, if necessary.

Raymond's Ravine was a fun scenario. The concepts, like exploration, interactive NPC's, etc were nice. I especially like the way that you obtain gold from the dead Barbarians. Things like that made it feel very RPG-esque. For that, I give a 4

BALANCE

NOTE: I played on the medium level, so my score was based on that level.

The balance was pretty good. The hardest caracther in the scenario was of course the evil king, and you had to use all your men to take him out. My balance score is like a 3.7> because it was not possible to lose to the barbarians (depending on the level).

CREATIVITY

The author claims that this is his first scenario, and it was very good for a first scenario. I can assume that the author put a lot of time and effort into this scenario and I want to congratulte him and tell him to keep it up. I like the way you have to explore to get extra men. I thought that was a creative concept. It was almost like an RPG minigame

MAP DESIGN

Small, winding cliffs and dirt roads. The map was beautiful. And the waterfall was very nice and realistic.

STORY

This is a campaign with a highly visible plot. You are immersed into the story of the campaign. The campaign also gave clear and concise instructions.

SUMMARY

Overall, this campaign was great. I could find nothing wrong with it. I hope this creator will produce more like this in the future.

Lord_Fadawah

Posted on 04/14/04 @ 12:00 AM

Rating

4.0

Breakdown

Playability

4.0

Balance

5.0

Creativity

4.0

Map Design

3.0

Story/Instructions

4.0

PLAYABILITY

I liked this campaign -- it is relatively fast-moving, yet takes a long time to complete. Raymond's Ravine is an RPG/RPS centered around Brian the Mercenary, and his objective to assassinate an enemy king. The plot is a bit lacking, but the gameplay makes up for it. You wander around rocky gorges, acquiring new troops, and you can attack then enemy when you are ready. Although nothing radically different about it for many other campaigns, there are a few novelty features that add a lot of flavour to gameplay. For a start, you can follow three different paths to victory. There are also five different levels of difficulty that you can choose from within the game (if you will indulge my boasting, the system for it was suggested by me ) which also adds to the replayability factor. There were no glaring bugs that I could see, and the difficulty system works extremely well. While there is nothing spectacular about it, I recommend this campaign. -4

BALANCE

On the lowest level of difficulty (pathetic) the scenario is far too easy, and only a newbie player would find it much of a challenge. The large numbers of troops avaliable mean that you can amass a decent-sized army, and with the HP and attack bonuses you get mean that there isn't really anything that can stop you. On the highest level of difficulty (insane) the campaign was far too tough for me to complete, as your enemies are extremely powerful and extra troops few and far between. Picture trying to kill a 600 HP unit, in an enemy city full of post-imperial troops, with only ten or so men yourself, and you'll understand what I'm talking about. I recommend playing the difficulty levels in between. No matter what your skill level, there is something here for you. 5

CREATIVITY

The "three-games-in-one" idea is almost bordering on the unique (as far as I know, the only other campaigns ever to make use of it are SCN Punk Team's Titulus Invadere and Berserker Jerker's Sabato Returns), and the intuitive balance system guarantee a high score. However, I've just stopped short of a perfect 5 because Raymond's Ravine is lacking something more. The gameplay is rather stultified, just a wander-around-the-map RPG is an idea which has been used more times then I can count. If you had added a few more original ideas to the actual gameplay (such as perhaps giving the player a time limit in which he must complete his objectives), you'd get a perfect score, but for now, sorry. +4

MAP DESIGN

Without a doubt Raymond Ravine's weak point. Forest, cliffs, grass1, and dirt paths are the only terrain types which see much use. The endless canyons of cliffs stacked on top of one another got a little boring, especially with just plain grass underneath. Maybe you should have added a few trees along the cliffs, or perhaps a lake that you need a boat to cross. I know it was supposed to look like a ravine, but after having a holiday in the Blue Mountains in the Central Coast I can tell you that they aren't just all rock. There is a nice-looking waterfall, but that in itself doesn't make up for the mediocre quality of the map in general. -3

STORY/INSTRUCTIONS

While Raymond's Ravine storyline is lacking in some regards (such as being easy to predict and pretty shopworn) it is partially redeemed by a lot of humour and a lot of dialogue between characters. Hints were abundant and useful. There is also a .bmp, and some spelling mistakes. 4

SUMMARY

Raymond's Ravine is good effort, especially for a first campaign.

GOOD POINTS

-- Liked the difficulty system and the multiple endings
-- Pretty addictive for the first 20 minutes